Decide on a “what’s in it for me” (WIIFM) for your audience.

Putting a speech together is like composing any other form of communication. It’s like any other message, such as an advertise­ment, that has to appeal to an end consumer. To have appeal, a speech needs to provide some benefit, a WIIFM, for the listener. If the listener does not work out very early in the speech that there is some benefit for him if he listens, then he won’t. It’s as simple as that. You should think very carefully about the subject you intend to discuss and make sure you pres­ent it in a way that gives the lis­tener a real benefit.

A natural extension of this is that you should keep the content of the speech very simple. Many speeches fail because they are pitched to the highest level of intel­ligence in the audience rather than to the average level. Remember, if the audience knew all about your subject they wouldn’t bother to come. The reason they are there is that they believe they will learn something. Keep in mind the old rule of KISS (keep it simple stupid).

Nobody has ever interrupted a speaker with a request to “make it more complicated”, but many a speaker has been interrupted by the snores of an audience which has found the dissertation too complicated. Every speech follows a simple pattern, which is:

1. Tell the audience what you are going to tell them.
2. Tell them.
3. Tell them that you have told them.

These are the three essential components of any speech. In the first part of your speech you clearly outline the object of the speech. This should constitute no more than 10-20 per cent of your speech.

In the major part of the speech you tell the audience all about the subject you are addressing. This is the reason for the speech and con­tains most of the material. Some­where between 60 and 80 per cent of your time should be devoted to giving the audience ‘the facts’.

Once you have made your case you can tell them that you have told them. You can virtually repeat what you said you were going to tell them at the start; repetition will drive the point home. This way the conclusion of your speech leaves the listener in no doubt as to what they are expected to gain from it or what action they should take. This part of the speech should occupy no more than 10-20 per cent of the available time.

Using this anatomy of a speech makes it quite simple to work out how much time you should spend on each part. For example, if you are to make a 20-minute speech, the opening section will be no more than two to four minutes long; so will the closing section. The main part, the ‘guts’ of the speech, will therefore be some­where between 12 and 16 minutes in length.

In the main part of the speech you should use only three major points around which you build your discussion. Don’t ever even consider discussing more major points than that. Many speakers fail because they try to cover too much ground in the body of the speech, leaving their audience either over­whelmed or hopelessly confused. Within the three major points you are making there is room for you to develop three examples to illus­trate or prove each of the points. This means that your speech should contain no more than nine examples, three about each of the points you want to make.